JOGLE – My Final Stats

A quick tot-up of the Strava posts over my JOGLE trip tells me the final scores on the doors (Anthea) came in as follows, including the extra vintage bike sportive for which I met up with a friend in Ulverston in The Lake District in the middle. As it was one of the harder days on a very heavy bike I think it counts and I'm making up the rules on this one.

• 1868 kilometres (1161 miles)

• 22,405 metres of vertical ascent (73,507 feet)

• 103 hours and 3 minutes ride time over 13 days

• Average speed 18.1 kmh (11.2 mph)

• 40,892 calories burned

I'll get a better image of this later but here's my Veloviewer infographic wheel for the trip (in two halves):

My average daily distance was 144km or 89 miles, although if you don't include the sportive and the two days shortened by mechanicals then the average across the other ten days was 157km or 98 miles.

I covered over 160km / 100 miles on five days.

The longest was 190km Ulverston to Warrington but only narrowly ahead of Day 1 Wick to Lairg 184km, which was fantastic considering I completed the last two hours in heavy Highland rain.

The final day from Dartmoor to Land's End wasn't very far behind that at 180km and easily wins the prize for both the hilliest stage (2782m m) and the longest daily ride time, 10h40m. That was a 7:19AM start and a 9:04PM finish, so close to 14 hours on the road that day.

I will have a good look at my ride vs stopped time later, average speeds were low compared to my normal rides, even the long ones. However I was carrying everything I needed as it was basically solo and unsupported, so the luggage added about 50% to the bike weight.

I also left Strava running on my phone when I stopped, for fear of not restarting it and losing miles, so includes wandering around supermarkets, town centres and parks and the like. Plus an awful lot of wrong directional guesses at junctions, requiring a turn round or moments of navigational indecision. Not to mention a huge number of photo stops and random twittering and texting, either in (slow) motion when safe or requiring even more stops and starts.

The highly changeable weather also had an effect, I made good choices of kit generally and had lots of layering options to cope with most scenarios but that also meant a lot of stops to add and remove them. Plus many a toilet dash!So all-in-all about 10-20% slower average speed isn't too bad and to be expected.

Another thing I'd like to check on is how my rate of progress varied during the day. Unexpectedly I found I was often really flying towards the end of the day, even in heavy rain on a few occasions, whilst much more sluggish early in the day or early afternoon. I suspect this was linked to eating patterns, maybe taking on board as many calories as I could at the infrequent opportunities available but then suffering the after-effects as my body processing that input in parallel. Eating smaller amounts more frequently is a better approach but requires pocket space and logical thinking at the stops, I was often much more impulsive!

Secondly there were some physical limitations as the accumulated efforts made their effects felt on contact points, joints and leg muscles. However I think by the end of the day the aches and pains had subsided into a general numbness and the brain was probably releasing sufficient endorphins to make me more oblivious to them.

There was also a third psychological factor, simply needing or wanting to get to an end point for the day and knowing I had enough left in the tank to push harder, compared to a more cautious approach in the morning when uncertain what demands the day would bring and holding back to keep plenty in reserve if needed. It helped that the Tour de France was also on and I'd often aim to get somewhere for 7pm to catch the highlights, then adjust to an 8pm target for ITV4+1 as reality struck home. I only got to see them twice in thirteen days though, as usually thwarted by bad weather in the evening or a lack of usable TV/WiFi on arrival or conflict with closing times for an evening meal. Still, it means I can binge-watch them all shortly, I hope.

Now it's apparently gone 1PM and I think I'd better get out of bed!

JOGLE July 2017

My JOGLE adventure is over. I had a fabulous couple of days down in Cornwall reunited with my long-suffering family (and dog) at the end and all staying at a friend's lovely place in Sennen Cove. We made the 10 1/2 hour drive back to our Peak District home last night though and it's going to take some adjusting back to 'normal' life after this fabulous trip.

However the dog bounded on to the bed to perform her 'happy headstands' this morning, my son is reunited with his guitar and happily strumming away in the background and my wife is unpacking and repacking for a music festival downstairs. I'm drinking the best coffee I've had in three weeks, whilst outside the rain is pouring down and the wider world order seems pretty much oblivious but I feel quite reinvigorated by the whole thing.

I do want to write a bit more extensively about the experience before the memories fade and blur but I don't think I'll just write a daily diary, as they can be a bit dull for others if they turn into a list of places and meals, probably not all that interesting for others who weren't there.

So instead I think I'll use this WordPress blog site to write about different aspects of the trip in separate posts, for instance about physical and health impacts in one post, route and navigation in another, bike and kit in another and so on across dozens of topics that spring to mind. Some practical, some quirky and no doubt some plain weird but hopefully an interesting read anyway.

I hope this makes a little sense, it should once more posts begin to appear. I certainly found a few bloggers had created some very helpful resources for my own trip but got a bit lost in some of the other turn-by-turn stories I came across!

Also there was an element of me which wanted to experience my own adventure anyway and not recreate someone else's, even if the LEJOG/JOGLE route is a well-trodden path, throwing a few metaphors into the mix. So I didn't really want to read too much detail in advance that might steer me too heavily one way or another, rather to let the trip form it's own shape. However I was certainly after some practical pointers and answers to specific questions relevant to me and found these were harder to track down in spite of (because of) the invention of the Internet since my past solo long distance touring exploits (which may get a retrospective post or two as well).

Let's see how it all comes together anyway, I'm heading off to what might well be a muddy music festival with friends in a couple of days and all sorts to do beforehand, so it will be a steady drip-feed of posts anyway. I hope some of you attempting something similar do find it useful and the rest of you find it a good read.

In case you do then one thing to add is that I am also using the trip to raise funds for the Motor Neurone Disease Association (MNDA) and St Michael's Hospice in Harrogate in the UK as we lost my Mum to this cruel disease last summer. Friends and relatives have been amazingly generous with sponsorship and it looks like we'll raise around £2000 but if any readers from the wider world would like to chip in with any contributions at all, then that would be really appreciated. Just think, even a couple of pounds / euros / dollars / bitcoins or whatever you buy your favoured beverage with from a thousand kind readers around the world could double that, who knows?!

You can quickly and easily donate through the following Virgin Money Giving page, they are a not-for-profit organisation and the money goes directly to the two charities:

Peak Pedals Virgin Money Giving Page

Thanks and I hope you enjoy what follows in the coming days and weeks anyway, thanks for reading this far at least.